Sunday, November 18, 2012

How I Spent My “Fall” Vacation – Episode 18


...open your notebooks and we will begin today’s lesson...
Episode 18 – November 17 – Getting to sleep last night was a little more difficult, Art was acting up and yelling. Our new roommate, Jim was getting his first taste of life in 621.
Sergio decided that he should wake me up at 6:30 to check my glucose levels. The good thing at least was my reading was 5.9. Yay!!
I tried to go back to sleep but the early morning vampire had to come and grab a snack from me before the sun was fully up. This time she claimed it was to check my B12 levels.
Right after Vampirella left, Dr. Chow, the on call doctor dropped on Dr. Haaf’s request. Obviously she hadn’t read my chart because the first thing she asked me is if I was walking around much. Ummm...no! She was supposed to be there to check on my possible urinary tract infection and without lab results there wasn’t much that could be done.
Last night the breakfast fairy sort of came by. She shuffled into the room walked to the window and then walked out down the hall. I saw her walk by again, look at the room and then disappear again. Needless to say there was gruel on the tray today. At least there was a little scoop of scrambled eggish stuff with my slice of toast. Fellie had talked to the dietician and got her to include some cranberry juice each morning. However, what they actually brought was cranberry cocktail which is one step away from red Kool-Aid. Even most cranberry juice you buy is only a small portion of cranberry. It’s mostly apple and grape juice but at least it is juice. Recently studies have been on cranberry juice and the effects in aiding the urinary tract are minimal but at best it won’t cause a problem.
It turns out that the new guy on the ward is Jim McFarlane, former head of the BCTF. I’m sure several of you teachers will remember him. I don’t know what he’s in for but hospitals are like prisons, you don’t ask. If they volunteer the information fine but sometimes it’s good to be kept in the dark. (I found out later it was for a knee replacement.)
I have a new day nurse today, Catherine. She seems quite good and efficient however she almost seems she want to be a doctor. She is a bit too thorough.
People have asked me about how I can deal with the boredom of lying in bed. To tell you the truth at this point in time I don’t get bored. Besides having several things to do like my writing and reading, my energy levels are so low that these things take a lot out of me and I have to lie back and even nap to re-energize. By the time boredom kicks in it is the end of the day.
One of the ways I was able to pass my time today was cheering my Notre Dame Fighting Irish walk all over Wake Forest and I was able to do it for free from a legitimate site. Hopefully I’ll be this lucky for Lions playoff game tomorrow. The Irish are now within a whisker of playing for the national championship.
The Crown Prince dropped in just as the game was ending. Acting upon my request he brought up with him some lip balm because my lips were drying out and cracking from the hot room. He also brought up a new nail care kit and if you have to ask why you don’t know me. Truthfully, I only asked him to buy a pair of clippers because my fingernails were getting too long; the rest of the items were a bonus.
Speaking of the heat in this room, Bryan kept looking for a thermostat but not to turn it down but to make sure it wasn’t a system designed by his company. Ever vigilant, that’s my boy.
We had an interesting discussion about several news items, the Hostess shut down and we decided to scrap our idea of investing in a grow op and go into the business of black market Twinkies. Bryan also experienced what I have I to deal with all day; listening to nurses in very loud voices speaking to old, nearly deaf, mostly delusional old men about their body functions and the corrective measures they were going to take. This while he was trying to decide what he was going to do about dinner. I believe he put off his decision for an hour or two.
While Bryan was there a delivery came for me. It was a fruit basket from CUPE 1004. Anyone care to guess what the top two items were? Steve, didn’t you tell them about the bananas? Lol!!
Dinner was another tasteless treat, meatish balls; very similar to the Salisbury steak the other day, only spherical.
Art was particularly delusional today climbing out of bed and falling on the floor twice and causing a general alarm amongst the nursing staff. The strange thing is that immediately after the last incident he had a very lucid conversation with Jim about farming in Saskatchewan. After about five minutes however he lapsed into his normal state.
Fellie was my night nurse and while checking my vitals confirmed a minor trend. My oxygen absorption levels were lower than normal. This is due to my shallow breathing while lying in bed and I have to work on breathing deeper.
After doing a final check on the NCAA football scores and confirming that both Kansas State and Oregon lost, I drifted off to sleep happily knowing that my Fighting Irish would be number one in all the polls tomorrow.
To be continued...

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